An Ordinal I Scaling Method for Questionnaire and Other Ordinal I Data

Abstract

This paper reports the development and application of a method for ordering persons and items (or stim uli) when responses are ordinal. The method applies most directly to data where responses are dichoto mous, indicating agreement or acceptableness or simi larity, and can be assumed to reflect proximity rather than dominance. It orders rows and columns of the re sponse matrix into "parallelogram" form, using pair- wise interchange procedures, followed by other steps. The method was applied to several sets of question naire data and one set of archeological data, with rea sonable success. Other applications and extensions are suggested. Index terms: Dichotomous responses, Interchange methods, Ordinal scaling, Parallelogram scaling, Proximity data, Questionnaire responses.